Dick Campbell, 91, Producer Active in Causes

Published: December 23, 1994

Dick Campbell, one of the first black theatrical producers and the executive director of the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation of Greater New York, died on Tuesday at Mt. Sinai Hospital. He was 91 and lived in Manhattan.

He died after a long illness, said his wife, Beryl.

Mr. Campbell, whose original name was Cornelius Coleridge, was born in Beaumont, Tex. He began his career as a performer, singing in "Connie's Hot Chocolates of 1929," a Broadway production featuring Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong, and appearing in other musicals and vaudeville shows. In later years he helped create the Negro Actors Guild, which assisted struggling black performers and created new opportunities for them. He was also a producer and director for the American National Theater Association and was its representative in Africa.

In 1942 Mr. Campbell was chosen by the Army to create and direct the Black U.S.O., which produced shows with Duke Ellington, Pearl Bailey and other well-known artists for the troops. After World War II, drawing on his U.S.O. experiences, Mr. Campbell established his own talent agency which represented such artists as Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. He also helped found the Harlem Theater Workshop and was executive director of the Symphony of the New World.

Mr. Campbell was a tireless advocate for black social causes. He spent seven years in Africa as a field consultant for the State Department's International Cultural Exchange Program. As an assistant director of public affairs in the New York City Human Resources Administration from 1967-72, he became the spokesman for the anti-poverty programs of the John Lindsay Administration. In 1972 he and his wife established the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation of Greater New York, and he remained its executive director until his death.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by three daughters, Diana Wilson Robinson, Paulette Wilson Casanova and Patricia Wilson Campbell; eight grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.